


Prey

by Nerissa



Series: Pretty Monsters [2]
Category: Wizards of Waverly Place
Genre: Community: omgjustinalex, F/M, Gen, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Probably very OOC, Strong Language, pre-incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-02
Updated: 2012-09-02
Packaged: 2017-11-13 09:45:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/502137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nerissa/pseuds/Nerissa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She never thought she'd be the girl who put up with this type of thing. But somewhere along the way she lost herself in him, and forgot who she used to be.</p><p>Justin didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prey

**Author's Note:**

> Please note additional content warnings for abusive relationship dynamics, and some victim-blaming.
> 
> This fic was written to fill [this prompt](http://omgjustinalex.livejournal.com/1626.html?thread=156506) for abusive!Mason fic at the omgjustinalex kinkmeme. I had to strain credibility quite a bit, given what we know of Alex, but I hope there's still something here worth reading!

It's eleven thirty at night, and Alex Russo is cleaning her shower. Given how often Alex cleans anything, this is twelve kinds of weird all at once.

So's the fact that she's cleaning with bleach.

Her eyes water and her nose stings, but she doesn't let up. Her breath comes in short, ragged puffs as she works, scouring the tub again and again and again.

No matter how many times she washes it, she's pretty sure it will never look clean enough.

"Alex?" Justin's voice is muffled by the wall between them. "Does it matter which one I wear?"

The question makes her laugh. The bathroom echoes with the sound of this humour-that-isn't and she feels more giggles welling up, uglier than giggles have any right to be.

She doesn't hear him come in. One moment she's alone, laughing over a bottle of bleach and her shower that will never be clean, and the next Justin is beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close.

He's not wearing a shirt yet, and he smells like Mason's deoderant, and it's horrible and wonderful all at once, the warm familiarity of Justin and the awful, stomach-turning smell of _him_.

"I can't believe it," she mumbles. "I just can't believe it."

"That's okay," Justin says. He rubs her shoulder the way he hasn't done in ages, not since they stopped being _them._ "It'll set in soon." He surveys the shower. "It looks good. Can I help with anything?"

"No." She puts the cap back on the bottle of Clorox. "Just go pick out a shirt. Any shirt." Her lips curve up at the corners. "Not like he'll be needing them, anymore."

As Justin heads back to the bedroom that his sister shares—shared—with her boyfriend, Alex realizes it's the first time in ages she's been able to smile, and mean it.

***

_The moment in the castle when Mason declared his love for Juliet made Alex's stomach seize. She had never been so hurt; she had never hated anybody so much._

_"Alex, I'm sorry, something just came over me!"_

_He looked sweet and helpless; so apologetic. But she was a different person, then. She was sharp and strong and sure. She didn't give him a chance to fawn, to flatter, to promise he'd do better next time. She ripped that stupid necklace off and flung it to the ground._

_Years later, she would look back on that moment as the last time she'd made a smart decision where Mason Greyback was concerned._

***

She has just replaced the bleach in the cupboard under the sink when the buzzer sounds.

Shit.

"Justin!" she gets to her feet. "Justin, are you ready?"

He reappears in the doorway of the bathroom, this time wearing a shirt. His hair is a little damp, his eyes dark and glittering, but if you didn't know him—if you didn't know him the way _she_ knows him—you wouldn't suspect a thing.

"I don't know." He tugs self-consciously at the collar of his borrowed rugby shirt. "Do I look okay?"

She has to smile. That he can even ask that, at a time like this . . .

"Let's see." She flattens his collar, smoothing the points under her palms. Her hands linger, tracing the line of his collarbone as she re-learns the planes of him through the double-knit polyester disguise. The clothes are all wrong for him, not his style at all, but who's to know? Nobody needs to know it's not even Justin's shirt.

Nobody needs to know—nobody _can_ know—that the shirt he wears makes her think of Mason, and the thought of Mason makes her sick.

***

_"Werewolves can't control themselves, and that will put you in danger."_

_She bristled at Chancellor Tootietootie's words, ready to tell him how wrong he was, how Mason was good and mature and responsible, how he would never take a risk with her life._

_She was glad she didn't, though, when moments later her boyfriend looked at her with soulful eyes and cried "Alex, why did you make me do that?"_

_She told him she was sorry._

_She said it because she believed he was right. She believed it was her fault, that she had given him no choice but to lose control of himself. Then she got home and told Justin what happened._

_"He blamed_ you _?" Justin's nostrils flared. "Where the hell does that fleabag get off blaming you for what_ he _did wrong?"_

_"Because it was really my fault! I was trying to make him angry. I provoked him."_

_"Oh so there was nowhere he could have gone where he wouldn't hear what you said? There wasn't anywhere else on the boat he could have calmed down, when he realized what was going on? There weren't any bathrooms good enough for His Hairyness to hide in, is that it?"_

_His words hit her like a slap. She cringed, brought her hands up her chest and said "please, Justin. Stop it."_

_He stopped—nobody could ever accuse Justin of lacking self control—and stared. His rage was eclipsed by bewilderment._

_"Jesus, Alex. What's he done to you?"_

_She couldn't answer. She didn't know what to say._

***

The buzzer sounds again, shattering her reverie and jerking her back, away from her brother.

"You'll be fine," she says. "Come on."

She starts down the hallway, running her hands over her smock, reorienting herself as she walks. She has been painting, she tells herself. She's been painting, and Justin has been keeping her company because she hates to be alone.

The thought twists her lips in a strange parody of a smile as she reaches the intercom and presses the 'talk' button.

"Hello?"

Huh. She sounds perfectly normal. How about that?

"Alexandra Russo?"

"Yes. Who's this?"

"Ms. Russo I'm Detective Daniel Kowalski, with the New York Police Department. May I come up?"

It's amazing how naturally her answer comes: "what's this about?"

"Ms. Russo . . . I'm afraid I have some bad news."

She looks back at Justin. He gives her a little half smile, tucks his hands in his pockets and nods. He's ready.

She takes a deep breath and turns back to the intercom.

"I'll buzz you up."

***

_Who would have thought Mason could be so persistent? When she realized he lived in her new building Alex had resigned herself to some awkward moments, but she hadn't thought more of it than that. She'd be fine. She felt safe, she had Harper, they had a door that locked and she could handle this. She was Alex Russo, after all._

_But she had no idea how many moments there would be. She could never have guessed how persistent Mason would be, how he would push and push and push the point, inserting himself into her life long after she thought she'd made it plain she wanted him to leave her alone._

_In the end, he wore her down._

_She told herself it was sweet. She convinced herself it was romantic. She tried to see it as proof of how much he loved her._

_She just wasn't sure how to tell Justin._

_She knew what he would say._

***

Detective Kowalski is tall and thin. Alex has to look up at him to meet his eye as she lets him into the apartment, but the effort is wasted because his gaze goes immediately to Justin, who gives a nod of greeting.

Then Detective Kowalski looks from Justin to Alex, and Alex marvels that she can still sound so normal as she says, "oh; this is my brother, Justin Russo."

"Mr. Russo," the detective nods courteously. "Ms. Russo," he turns his attention back to her, "I'm sorry, I need to ask: what is the nature of your relationship with Mason Greyback? His identification lists this as his address."

"With Mason?" she echoes. "He's my boyfriend. We both live here. Why?"

Justin moves to stand closer to her, and it takes all her willpower not to lean back into him. Luckily, Alex has never lacked willpower; just common sense.

***

_The first time Mason hit her, it was almost an accident. They had a fight about how often she visited her family without him, and how rejected it made him feel. She was moving forward to apologize when he spun around, catching her in the temple with an outflung arm._

_"Oh, God, Alex, I'm sorry!" He was so sweet, so horrified, as he helped her up from the floor. "God, I'm sorry, you should know better than to sneak up on me like that. I don't know my own strength. Should we go to the hospital? That must have hurt."_

_It had, but not the way he meant. It hurt somewhere lower than the side of her head, where she'd been struck. It hurt her heart, and it turned her stomach sour._

_"Didn't you hear me coming?" she asked that night, as she checked her swelling temple in the mirror. "You hear everything. You can hear the superintendent swearing at the broken elevator and those people three apartments over arguing over their cable bill. You can hear the couple two floors below us having sex, for God's sake, but you couldn't hear me walking up behind you?"_

_"I was distracted," he said. His expression as he watched her was rich in tender concern. "Oh, love, it looks awful. Do you think you had better stay home for the next few days, until the swelling goes down? You wouldn't want people to get the wrong idea about us, or anything."_

_Then he laughed, charmed by his own joke. She smiled to hide how cold she felt inside._

_"You're probably right," she said. "I'll call Mom in the morning and tell her I can't come over for a while."_

_She put three extra blankets on their bed that night, but it didn't help. She still felt cold._

***

Detective Kowalski treats her with such exquisite courtesy, she finds herself trying to look more like porcelain just to fit his perception of her.

"Ms. Russo," he says gently, "I am very sorry to tell you this, but Mr. Greyback was found dead in Central Park earlier this evening."

"Oh my God." She presses both hands to her mouth. Her nausea is genuine. "What happened?"

Detective Kowalski hesitates. He glances behind her, to Justin, and she can see the question in his eyes: _can she handle this?_

Anger flares within her. Her temper has been so long dormant, it stuns her with its reappearance at the sight of that patronizing, man-to-man look.

She knows, objectively, what she must look like to this stranger: she is a petite young woman in a long-sleeved dress and heavy painting smock that make her look even tinier than she really is. But she's had enough of being too small to handle things. She's had enough of people forcing her to be frail. She used to be sharp and smart and sure of herself. She can't remember what that's like, exactly—it seems sometimes that was an entirely different Alex Russo than the one she's become—but she remembers liking who she was.

She wants to like herself again.

So she narrows her eyes, she hardens her voice, and she sounds like a different person—almost her old self, again—as she orders: "Tell. Me. Everything."

Damn it, she _earned_ those details.

***

_The next time Mason hit her it was nothing more than a pair of hard swats, meant mostly as a teasing gesture. It wasn't his fault that his teasing gestures hurt like hell; it wasn't like he could control himself, after all. He hadn't been able to control himself when he declared love to Juliet, or when he ate Dean, or when he wolfed up at the Wizard of the Year banquet and ruined her entire evening._

_If there was one thing the girlfriend of a werewolf had to learn, it was that he couldn't control himself . . . and that he was really good at apologizing for it._

_"God, Alex, I'm so sorry. You know I don't know my own strength, right love?" he fretted, kissing the aching spot on her arm._

_Of course she knew. He reminded her often enough. But she figured it was kind of her fault anyway, for making a rude joke about his parents._

_She wore long sleeves until the bruises faded because it would never do for anybody to get the wrong idea about them. She had given up so much to be with him, and they were happy together. It wouldn't be fair if anybody misunderstood Mason._

_Nothing else happened until after she and Justin lost the competition to Max. After that, Mason was less patient with her; less willing to apologize. It was almost like he thought he didn't have to, now that she couldn't hold her own against him._

_A few weeks after the competition, they had a fight. He wolfed up. Things got broken. She hit her head, and it was all a little hazy. She couldn't remember enough the next day to be sure it hadn't been her fault that time, too, so she didn't say anything more about it. Neither did he._

_The next time was at the end of a day they had spent with her family. She had stayed close to Justin for most of the day, and Mason's mood had gotten increasingly ugly as a result. When they got home they ordered in, because both of them were too tired to microwave something. Then, while they waited for their Chinese food to arrive, he slipped a hand up her T-shirt and tried to kiss her. She turned her face away._

_"Oh, Mason, not tonight. If we're too tired to cook, aren't we too tired to—"_

_His hand wrapped around her jaw. His grip was hard; painful. He forced her face back to his, and found the kiss he'd been looking for._

_"Mason, what the hell!"_

_"Come on, Alex, it's been more than a week!"_

_"It's been five days. Jesus, Mason, NO. I told you I'm tired."_

_He didn't take that well._

_In retrospect, Mason never took hearing 'no' very well, but this was the first time he'd flat out refused to hear it._

_This was the first time he held her down. This was the first time she couldn't pretend that what happened next was anybody's fault but his._

***

Detective Kowalski insists on having her seated for the telling of it, and she figures that makes sense; figures she must look like the sort of fragile person who would shatter if she had to bear her own weight at the same time as she bore the news he was giving her.

"Mr. Greyback," he says gently, "was attacked with a blade."

"A blade?" she echoes. She tries to picture the carefully-concealed remnants of Justin's monster-hunting collection, and imagine which one it must have been.

"We don't know a lot at this time," the detective explains. "But he was, uh . . . savaged."

She ponders the description.

"Savaged?"

"Ms. Russo, I would really prefer to spare you the details—"

"No, please," she says quickly. "I mean," collecting herself, "that is, I feel I, um, owe it to his memory."

It's such bullshit she expects him to arrest them both on the spot. Instead, he seems charmed by the sentiment, and unburdens himself of a few of those details he'd previously wanted to keep to himself.

The cuts were many, and they were deep. There had been a lot of blood.

"Did he suffer?" she asks, and silently congratulates herself on not sounding hopeful.

Detective Kowalski should work on his poker face. The discomfort and nausea in his expression warm her belly nicely.

"I'm afraid," he says, "that most of the wounds were made pre-mortem. That means—"

"I know what pre-mortem means," she snaps, "I watch CSI."

Detective Kowalski is duly chastened. He moves on to a few routine questions, and Alex tries to answer them without betraying the way she feels lighter and freer with every passing minute.

No, she doesn't know of any enemies Mason had. Especially not doctors.

"Why doctors?" she can't help but ask, and it seems that the attack on Mason suggests a clinical knowledge of anatomy, given how long he was kept alive before he finally died.

No, she doesn't know any doctors, crazy or otherwise, who might have wanted to do anything like this.

"Mason was always very careful to be sweet to everybody," she says.

Until it was too late for them to see him for what he really was.

***

_She went to the Wizard Police first thing the next morning. That was one of the few parts of the Wizard World not barred to them now, but just a few minutes into her visit she wished she'd lost access to that, too. She told them her werewolf boyfriend was hurting her, and the wizard cop who took this information looked less than alarmed by it._

_"What do you want me to do about it, then?" he asked. She thought she couldn't have heard him right._

_"I want you to stop him! Charge him, or whatever it is you do!"_

_The wizard cop sighed._

_"You say he's done this before. Why didn't you come to us then?"_

_The reasons she gave sounded feeble even to her own ears. She saw on his face that he didn't find them too persuasive, either; when he put down the pen and leaned forward, his next words confirmed it._

_"Miss Russo, let's be frank, shall we? We've had our run-ins in the past. In my experience, you've never been, uh, the backing-down type. So maybe you can understand why I'm having a hard time imagining a young, er, lady, like yourself, taking more than one punch from this guy before you handed him his ass, wizard powers or not._

_"Now," he smiled knowingly at her, "I understand that young couples, they have their fights. That's to be expected, especially in a cross-species relationship like this. But the Wizard World Police force does not exist to help you get back at your boyfriend after he's pissed you off. Am I making myself clear?"_

_He was; he was also making her sick. She could have stood there and argued with him, but why bother? He'd already made up his mind._

_Numb, shaking, alone, she left._

_She couldn't bring herself to go back to their apartment. Instead, she went home. The lair was empty at that time of day, and the chair looked so safe, so welcoming . . . with a soft, angry sob she curled up in the chair and, as she had done years before, started crying because of Mason._

_This time, it wasn't her mother who came in. It was Justin, deep in thought, his arms full of the textbooks he'd need for his pre-med studies this fall. He was almost across the room before he realized she was there._

_"Alex?"_

_She looked up, tear-streaked and puffy. He took in the sight of her and his face hardened. His expression turned set and cold, like stone. He put the textbooks down._

_"What did he do?"_

_She told him everything. He listened, his expression unchanging as he sat across from her. When she finished he leaned forward and asked "what do you want me to do?"_

_The wizard cop had asked her that like he couldn't believe she had the audacity to want him to do anything._

_Justin asked because he wanted to make sure he did it just right._

***

Justin holds her hand and keeps her steady as Detective Kowalski leaves. He promises that she can be reached here if they have any more questions; he promises that he will be here, too.

He keeps holding her hand after they're alone together.

"Should we call Mom and Dad?" he wants to know, and the words have barely left his mouth before she answers, panicked.

"No. God, no. At least," she rakes her free hand through her hair, "not tonight. I guess I should tomorrow, so they don't hear it from somebody else."

He leads her over to the couch, gets her settled, offers tea and ignores her scornful retort "tea's for old ladies and prissy British people" because of how ill she looks the moment she says 'British people'.

So he doesn't get her tea. He sits beside her, now holding both her hands in his. She studies his knuckles with clinical detachment for several minutes before she speaks again.

"Did he scream?"

Justin nods.

"Yeah. A lot."

His assurance is more warming than tea. She wraps herself in it with a grateful sigh.

"I'm glad." A slight frown puckers the smooth golden skin between her eyes. "I wish I could have been the one to make him do it."

He pulls her to him, helps her pillow her head on his shoulder, and presses his lips to the top of her head. "If it helps," he says, "I was thinking about you the whole time."

Her laugh surprises them both. He hugs her tighter and she settles against him, remembering what it is to feel safe. No strings attached.

***

_Justin phoned her earlier that day, just before lunch._

_"Today," he said._

_"All right," she agreed. "I'll make sure he's there."_

_She called Mason and arranged to meet him in the park for lunch. Then she hung up, and made herself a sandwich._

_She didn't hear from her brother again until well after supper. It was dark, and nearing the time when she would normally be thinking about bed, when the intercom buzzed._

_"Alex?" his voice was thickened by the static of the intercom and his own fatigue. "Alex, let me in."_

_Static, fatigue and even the hours of careful planning they had shared in no way prepared her for the sight of her brother standing in the hallway, his clothing spattered thickly with blood._

_"Shit, Justin! What if somebody saw you? Some genius big brother you are; why didn't you use the transformation spell?"_

_"I did. It wore off two blocks ago. Serves me right, asking Max for help, but at least the body-bind spell held Mason. That was the important one, after all . . . hey," he added, smiling, "you almost sounded like your old self, just then."_

_She wanted to enjoy that, but they were working against the clock._

_"How much time do we have?"_

_He shook his head._

_"I don't know." His smile turned a little quirky. "I'm not that familiar with the, uh, human cops."_

_"Oh!" she clapped her hands briskly, "well, that's all right, I am. Come in. Quick." Then she pulled him inside, shoved him down the hall toward the bathroom, and told him to strip and give her his bloodstained clothes._

_"I don't think the washing machine's going to be equal to this, Alex," he said, smiling darkly at the graceful, gruseome arc Mason's arterial spray had traced across the wizard's shirt._

_"No shit," said Alex. "I'm going to burn them. There's a bin in the alley. And don't take too long in the shower, either; I'll need to clean it once I'm done with these."_

_It was almost foreign by that point, the rush of confidence that used to be first nature to her. She hadn't felt so collected, so accomplished, in ages. It felt good._

_It felt right._

***

They stay together that night, curled up on the couch, locked around each other like two pieces of a puzzle that should never have been taken apart.

Justin wakes just as the world beyond the window lightens to the filmy grey of dawn. He doesn't mean to disturb his sister's sleep but he must have moved or made a sound of some kind because Alex stirs and raises her face to his.

"Don't leave me," she says. It's part plea, part command, and it renders him wholly helpless. He nods, and holds her closer.

"I'd never leave you, Alex. You know that."

It's a promise he's made before. This time it's one he means to keep.

~***~


End file.
